Transmission Issue

2002 KIA SPECTRA
137,500 MILES
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JOECAT42
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  • 1 POST
Yesterday I was taking my family on a trip to see my mother. Driving at normal highway speeds. Suddenly my 2002 Kia Spectra engine started revving real high like I had put it in neutral. I took my foot off of the accelerator, shifted to a lower gear nothing. drifted the car off the side of the highway tried putting into all gears. Transmission wouldn't engage in any. I checked transmission fluid level and everything seems to be normal. Can the transmission suddenly go bad like that without warning or is there a computer or sensor malfunction that may be the problem?
May 19, 2013 at 4:08 AM
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CARADIODOC
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Transmissions fail all the time, especially when they hang an unreliable, complicated, unnecessary computer onto something that never needed a computer before. There could be a broken wire, corroded splice, corroded terminal in an electrical connector, broken shaft that runs the fluid pump, leaking seal, . . .

The point is there's lots of things that can cause a sudden failure. Many of those are relatively easy to diagnose when there's a computer in the system because it monitors a lot of operating conditions and will memorize diagnostic fault codes that will tell the mechanic which circuit or system needs further diagnosis.
May 19, 2013 at 11:19 AM